CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Scarlett
It took many weeks for my jumpiness to ease whenever I left The Patrician. For those first few months I abided by Griff's need to have security with me when I went out on my own, but as I grew mentally stronger, they started to feel restricting. Reluctantly, I talked my husband into giving me some freedom again. He hated it. He worried. However, it was what I wanted, so he gave that to me.
The nightmares faded over time and Griff was there to help me beat them back until they did. I knew the bad dreams upset him. We talked about going to therapy. After all, Griff had seen a man who had once been his friend blow his own head off.
Yet, somehow, we got through it without talking to an outsider. Instead, we spoke to each other.
We needed that deep connection, especially because the gossip rags weren't the only ones to pick up the story. My husband and I found ourselves on national news, and it wasn't easy. I was already a nervous wreck and having paparazzi around did not help. With his connections, Griff succeeded in getting a court order to keep the particularly persistent ones away.
Eventually, the sensation died, and I started to feel more like myself again.
Still, I avoided the society pages. Which was what I was doing, flipping past the page in the newspaper, as I ate breakfast with my husband. It was mid-summer and life was finally finding some kind of equilibrium again. Griff sat beside me reading a newspaper too, and I’d just taken a bite of toast when I nearly choked on it.
“Are you alright?” My husband frowned in concern.
I nodded and took a sip of coffee to wash the clogged piece down. Then I waved the newspaper at Griff. "Have you seen this?"
“What is it?”
Staring at the headline, suspicion crept over me.
"A story about Bryce McKellan. A story stating that he's just lost eight figures he invested in a new app. It turns out he somehow failed to realize the idea for the app was already under patent in Japan. The patent, unfortunately, was discovered days before Bryce was set to launch the app. Several investors in ongoing projects have subsequently pulled out, and stocks have fallen drastically." I looked at my husband.
He stared determinedly at his paper. “How unfortunate.”
I narrowed my gaze. “How does someone as smart as Bryce miss a patent?”
“Well,” his lips twitched, “things can go missing for a while.”
I knew it!
“How did you do it?”
"I'm not saying I did do it." He shot me a look, his dark eyes filled with amusement, "But if it were me, I'd pay someone at the patent office to misplace the digital and hardcopy files of the patent. I'd then pay the patent owner to keep his silence until the perfect moment. Say… days before the app was to launch. If it were me."
Laughter bubbled in my throat. “You’re wicked.”
“I never said it was me.”
“Mmm hmm.”
The amusement in Griff’s eyes died. “No one fucks with you, Scarlett, and gets away with it. You deserve justice for what he did.”
I reached across the table and squeezed his arm. “Thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me for that.” He closed his paper and stood. Holding out his hand to me, he continued, “But you might want to thank me for this.”
“For what?” I asked.
“Let me show you.”
Griff led me through the penthouse to one of the smaller guest rooms off the kitchen. Except when he led me inside it was no longer a guest bedroom.
It was an office.
The bed was gone, and there was now a sitting area with a comfortable armchair and footstool by the fireplace. There was sofa adjacent to it with a little coffee table in the middle.
In front of the window that looked down onto Fairfield Street was a desk in white oak. Sitting on it was my laptop, a vase of flowers, the photograph of my parents I’d kept on my nightstand, and beside it my favorite photo from my and Griff’s wedding.
And bookshelves.
Bookshelves filled with lots of books.
“How… what?” I gazed around, my heart racing a little.
Griff seemed to enjoy my reaction. “I thought it was time you had your own office so you can finish that book you’ve been writing for months.”
Tears filled my eyes. “Griff… I love it.”
My husband drew me to him and pressed his lips to mine. “Good.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the books. “Where did you get all these?”
“Your online wish list. It was quite extensive.”
“Quite extensive?” I pulled out of his arms and hurried over, trailing my fingers over the shelves and shelves of commercial fiction that wasn’t literary enough to make it into the library downstairs. “Griff, this is every book I’ve added to that wish list for the last five years.”
When I turned around, he was right there, pulling me into his arms again. "Happy?"
I shook my head in wonder. “How did I get so lucky?”
“I think that’s my question.”
God, I loved this man. I kissed him. I kissed him with everything I had.
When I found myself pressed up against the bookshelves, our breaths mingling as we tried to catch them, I smiled into his eyes. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He squeezed my waist. “I can’t make up for what happened to you, Scarlett, but I’m going to try my very best to make sure life is never anything but fucking fantastic for you going forward.”
Grinning, I tightened my hold on him. “I want to say thank you properly.”
His eyes glittered. “Why don’t we Christen the desk?”
Desire and anticipation flooded me. “Oh, yes, please.”